There is often a need to create a queuing system in a simple way at service points, such as banks, post offices, chemists, utilities, travel agencies, delicatessen counters, amusement park attractions, etc, each of which can have several operator positions.
Such systems are well-known and are normally designed in such a way that a customer must first go to the service point in order to obtain a queue number. This is usually carried out by the customer obtaining a queue ticket from some kind of dispenser. A screen, display or the like then shows which queue number is being served and the customer is forced to wait his turn on the premises if he is not to risk losing his place in the queue. In the following, such a conventional arrangement with display and ticket dispenser is called a queue information device.
In order to save time and to be able to carry out other tasks during the waiting time, the customer must thus take a chance on being able to carry out his task and trying to estimate the time until it is his turn. Often this ends up with a new queue ticket having to be taken as the earlier number has already passed, which results in an even longer wait.
In order to avoid this inconvenience, there are, for example, systems where the customer is allocated some form of electronic ticket, for example in the form of a pager which warns the customer in good time, so that his number is not passed before he gets back to the service point. Such a system is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,006,983.
A remaining problem is, however, that the customer must still go to the service point to obtain a ticket, even though it is electronic. This means that time and energy are often wasted quite unnecessarily. Associated with this, there is also the problem that the service point must be compatible with the equipment for the electronic ticket.
A further problem is that if the customer has more than one task to carry out, for example in a shopping centre, he must visit several places in order to obtain his queue numbers.
By means of U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,770 a system for allocating and handling queue reservations for dispersed services is already known. A person or a group of persons entering an amusement park are given a user terminal where information about the user is to be entered. The user terminal communicates with a computer for each attraction via a wireless communication network. By means of the user terminal, the user can receive information about queues, in the following called queue information, such as notification messages, estimated waiting time, type of service and means of obtaining a queue number, from the computer for a selected attraction. In this way the user does not need to physically stand in a queue and wait to be admitted to the attraction, but can spend the time on other activities in the amusement park. Although the system is an improvement in comparison with the normal way of physically forming a queue and the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,006,983, a person must still go to a particular place in order to be able to take advantage of the system's benefits. In addition the amusement park, for example, must pay the costs associated with the purchase of user terminals, programming of each user terminal, charging the user terminals' energy sources and personnel to issue the user terminals and give instructions about how they work.